Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-03-11
A RAGING TORRENT.
The Texas Express on the st. Louis,
Icon Mountain and Southern Goes
Through a Trestie.
Trainmen Badly Injured and Many Pas
sengers Narrowly Escape Drowning.
The Mail all Lost.

The Mail all Lost.
ST. LOUIS, Mo, March "A railroad
accident on the Iron Mountain Railway
near De Soto, Mo-, last night, while not
being at sill unusual in regard to fsta
casualties, proves to have been quite re.
markable in several circumstances which
attended it. II occurred at Victoria,
thirty-nine miles south of here, little
after 10 o'clock, and was occasioned
by the giving way under q
creek at that point. Tae train was the
Texas express, and consisted Of baggage,
express and mail cars, a smoker, two
passenger coaches and four sleepers, car
rylng about $50 psssengj1s. heavy
rain had fallen all day, add the creek was
much swollen. At Hemitite, the first
station this side OF the trestle, the en-
gineer received orders 10 run
cautiously. as the rain had been
heavy and the creek was out of It's
banks. Engineer Kelly says he ran slow
beyond that point and both ne and his
fireman, William Hatch, watched the
track very carefully. As he approached
was entirely straight and level, sRowing
nothing wroDg, and ne went on without
the slightest fear or hesitation, but
when his engine reached about the
middle Of the trcstlework he
felt the whole structure sinking beneath
him. IN an instant he opened the valve
operating the air brakes and brought the
train to so quick stop that the front eEd
DF 81 : h., he in y q
sudd n shock. This saved the coaches,
but the baggage, mail, express and smok
ing cars went into the raging torrent be-
low, carrying with them ell the men on
board. Engineer Kelly and Fireman
Hatch went down with the
engine and were submerged
in the food. Kelly, in his struggles to
free himself, found one Of his feet was
held fast, but at the same instant ard
lust as he realized he must drown, the
engine turned over, his foot was re-
leased and he came to the surface Seiz-
ing a passing log he chung to it desper-
ately and was swept down the torrent
and lodged against tree $50
yards below With scarcely strength
enough to move, he Clasped his legs and
arms around the limb of tree and be-
came unconscious, and was not restored
until two or three hours after he had been
taken from the tree, when he found him
self kindly cared for in a house in Vic
toria. His face and hands are severely
cut, two of his toes cut from one Of mis-
feet, and he is very badly bruised in va
rious parts Of the body. He will recover.
Fireman Hatch was carried about 500
yards down the stream and lodged in a
mass of brush or drift, and was rescued
soon after the food subsidized. He is q
good deal bruised but not seriously hurt.
The postal Car was swept away some
distance, and as the water ran through
it from end to end the mail was washed
out and is now scattered over miles
of territory or imbedded in
the mud of the creek. 1t is
regarded as an almost total loss, the
whole of it being completely soaked and
the addresses of the letters being Cbliter-
ated. Postal Clerks Mccullough, Shaet-
fer and Ryan were badly bruised and al
most drowned, and being stripped for
work they lost all clothes, gold watches
fnd about $3.50 IN money, which were
carried away by the flood.
The smoker, which is said to have con-
tanned some twenty passengers, was
swept down about 800 feet below the
trestle and all OF its occupants believed to
have been saved. They succeeded in get
ting outside Of the car and clung to its
top until they were rescued. There is
some doubt about the baggageman and
express mes enger being saved, but
late dispatch from the wreck
says that none of the trainmen
were lost. Last night a special train was
sent from here between y and l O'Clock
conveying physicians and medical sup
plies. This train returned this afternoon
and brought number of passengers and
trainmen who did not care to wait at the
wreck until the tTestle was repaired. IS
the water subsidized sufficiently large gang
was put to work and the new crossing
finished this afternoon, and trains are
now running regularly. The cause Of
the unprecedented food is believed to be
a cloud burst which took place late in the
evening, and filed the creek which runs
between the ruggid hills for miles 50 full
that it became a raging torrent, with
current OF over twenty miles per hour.
and swept everything before it.
full list of casualties cannot be Oh
tanned tonight, but aside from Henry
Byron of jamestown, n. Y, who was
found drowned in the smoker, and
ByrReS, brakeman, who had his foot
disloCated, no one than those mentioned
were in any way seriously injured. Nearly
one-half Of those in the smoking car lost
most OF their clothing, it being torn from
their perSouS either in getting out of
the car or by the rushing water through
which they were dragged ashore by
ropes.
farmer named Andrew Whitehead of
Bayley did heroic work in saving pas
sengerS, he having swan several times to
the smoker and each time returned with
one OF the unfortunates who were cling
ing to the roof of the car. Several OF the
passengers il the sleepers also aided ma
terially in the work, and Conductor
Gunon Of the train and all of the train
crew labored like Trojans in rescuing
those on the car.
The mail is said 10 have been the
largest ever sent over the road, and the
losses will fall heavily on this city where
shout three quarters of the matter orl
ginated. Registered matter was sis
very heavy and valuable, consisting large
~ of remittsnCes from firms here to their
correspondents in Texas. There were
separate pouches for Palestine, Dallas,
TeXaIkana, Hot Springs and
Memphis, and one from New York for
Houston, Tex. There were also twenty
eight registered packages for smaller
stations. The paper mail is said to be q
total loss. All of the letter mail that can
he found will be brought here and every
effort will be made to ascertain to who it
belongs. An express package without an
address or anything on it by which it can
be Identified containing S37, 900 was found
today, and it is not UNLIKELY others will
be discovered in the bed Of the creek or
IN 10 rrrnnES